need help with hydro

Okay I am a complete noob when it comes to dwc/bubbler method and have a question to the more experienced hydroponicers out there. So my set up is a 5g bucket with a 3" net pot and 2 airstones at te bottom. I have general hydropomics flora series 3 part. I have no idea how to use the nUtes, do I add the suggested amount to one gallon and fill the rest up with water to right under the net pot or do I add the recommended amount to each gallon it takes to fill the bucket up under the net pot, id appreciate any help . Thank you

The latter. Your nutes will say something along the lines of 20ml per 10L of water, so 40L of water means 80ml of that bottle of nutrients. Just see what your bottle states and multipl. Remember with young plants to consider 1/4 or 1/2 the recommended strength.

If it says 5ml a gallon then multiply by how many gallons you have I.e. 3 gallons x 5ml=15ml. Also, I wouldn't use the full strength off the label. Start at 50% strength and see how it goes. Do you have a ph meter and an EC/TDS or ppm meter?

Traingrow said:

Okay I am a complete noob when it comes to dwc/bubbler method and have a question to the more experienced hydroponicers out there. So my set up is a 5g bucket with a 3" net pot and 2 airstones at te bottom. I have general hydropomics flora series 3 part. I have no idea how to use the nUtes, do I add the suggested amount to one gallon and fill the rest up with water to right under the net pot or do I add the recommended amount to each gallon it takes to fill the bucket up under the net pot, id appreciate any help . Thank you

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Click this web site.
http://www.generalhydroponics.com/calculator/index.html

Remember General Hydroponics recommends adding your micro nutes first. Always use a clean cup to take a smaple before you try and do your PH and PPM readings. Also please be advised that DWC is super easy all you have to do is make sure you keep the water under 70 degrees. If not you will encounter root rot and all sorts of troubles.

Seedlings don't get nutes for at least a week. Just ph'd water.. or distilled (which interestingly works at 7.0 PH.)

After that first week in the DWC, then add half strength nutes.

Good luck

Man, i don't bother giving seedlings nutes for a month odd, just plain water, unless i'm on a deadline i never give nutes until they actually need them.

Thank you for the quick reply! so the bucket won't need all 5g of liquid obviously so should I add up to 4g and mix accordingly or will it be a little off with say like 4.1g-4.3 and Mix to that?

tip top toker said:

Man, i don't bother giving seedlings nutes for a month odd, just plain water, unless i'm on a deadline i never give nutes until they actually need them.

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Wow a month is pretty long.. so you wait until they actually stress? Can you tell me why?

I've never considered it stress, they just let me know when they need some food, up until that point they grow just lovely and green and healthy. I seem to read little but the apparent requirement for some form of nutes in hydro at all times. They do just dandy in water. I often have plants flowering in plain water without any ill effect (gauged by many many many grows of the same lady).

Traingrow said:

Thank you for the quick reply! so the bucket won't need all 5g of liquid obviously so should I add up to 4g and mix accordingly or will it be a little off with say like 4.1g-4.3 and Mix to that?

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Mix to 5 gallons and bring the water up fairly close ( 1-2 inches ) under the net pot the splashing of the bubbles will hit the net cup and make that seedling start searchign for water.

Void made a good point dont hit them with nutes until you see the second set of leaves come in usually takes about 1-2 weeks then start off 1/4 strength and work your way up.
To the guy who said he doesnt give his seedlings any food for a month that is crazy I never heard of that, anything after 2 weeks you can start to see the lower set of leaves get yellow which means the baby is hungry and needs nitrogen.

tip top toker said:

I've never considered it stress, they just let me know when they need some food, up until that point they grow just lovely and green and healthy. I seem to read little but the apparent requirement for some form of nutes in hydro at all times. They do just dandy in water. I often have plants flowering in plain water without any ill effect (gauged by many many many grows of the same lady).

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Thats really odd, do you use tap water or rain water??? That might be why. I use R/O water and by week two the plants will start getting yellow if I dont feed them..

Straight outta the tap no sitting around overnight or anything. Of late i've taken to often just giving em ph 8 water straight outta the tap to no ill effect. Apart from a few niggles my first ever grow i've always thought it to be one piss easy plant to grow.

Yes I have a ph test kit and a water quality tester. I just took a clone 2 days ago and its in plan water bubbling lol. haven't checked ph on it though , figured I'd wait till I seen some root action before I switched to distilled water since it is 000ppm and ph neutral. I've read and seen a lot of good things about hydro and was wondering what I could expect from sour diesel grown this way under a 400w hps and side lighting. anyone have an idea?

tip top toker said:

Straight outta the tap no sitting around overnight or anything. Of late i've taken to often just giving em ph 8 water straight outta the tap to no ill effect. Apart from a few niggles my first ever grow i've always thought it to be one piss easy plant to grow.

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Probably enough trace minerals (good ones ) in your tap water to keep that baby alive, pretty cool find with your tap water. Shitty ass AZ desert water out here.

Possibly. I do know it's not plain water though, tastes like shite. Comes out with an EC of 0.2 i think, can't recall.

I've searched for a while to try finding info on how to add the nutes but couldn't find an example on utube or any other site like this so I thought I'd ask because I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering about it

tip top toker said:

Possibly. I do know it's not plain water though, tastes like shite. Comes out with an EC of 0.2 i think, can't recall.

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Fuck it! The Plants love it and thats all that matters.!!

tip top toker, I see how you get away with the month without nutes since you use tap water and there are a lot of micro-nutrients in it already. I think that I could probably do this as well but honestly by the beginning of the third week if you hit it with light nutes you get that explosive growth that DWC is known for. I am not saying what your doing is wrong because obviously it's working for you, but you may have better growth earlier on like this.

Traingrow your post is too vague to give you an answer, there are lots of parameters that determine the amount of harvest.
Op it looks like BeaverHuntr has good info for you. Good luck and happy growing everyone.
KnB

Risk with seedlings and young clones if you overfeed early is nute burn..go slow, dont push, they will tell you when they want more. Make sure you change water out every two weeks, keep pH around 5.8, if you are using R/O water, consider adding a little Cal.Mg..it will help buffer pH swings and not hurt the plants. For the GH three part, whgich I use, start at 25% or less after a couple weeks..Monitor PPM..If you see it drop, add more with next rez change. Add back only water, not nutes..your pH adjustments will cuse a gradual rise on their own with salts in system..If you go over about 1400-1600ppm , you will lock out the nutes and your plant will suffer. Im using a DWC, bubbler with fog as well..watch rez temps too..stay under 70. Use frozen water bottles as needed to keep temps down. Good Luck!

since I only have the gh 3 part and am using distilled water should I use 10% tap water in the mix to add calcium or whatwould you recommend?